What You Are, I'm Not Or Maybe I Am
by Redgirl7
Summary: The application letter was completely expected. The consequences, however, were not. Life in America and life in Japan, worlds apart, or closer than they think? Kagakuro. (A little bit of Christmas, too)


You only realise routine when it gets disrupted.

You only notice darkness when the light's switched off.

You only find out how much fun it was until you're by yourself bored out of your mind.

* * *

You never realised how much presence Kagami had until the day you said goodbye to him at the airport. Your last basketball year had ended with Seirin snatching victory away from the title defenders Rakuzan. It had been a fiercely intense match and you had to admit that Kagami had been absolutely amazing, by far the best on the court, which apparently had also been noticed at the other side of the planet.

The acceptance letter from UCLA was therefore not surprising at all. You had been reading on your favourite spot on Kagami's couch, which you occupied at least half the week, when you heard Kagami scream in the hallway. Hearing words that didn't sound Japanese to your ears, you hurried over to find Kagami leaning against the wall, staring at the letter in his hand as if it had declared any and all hamburger restaurants illegal.

"What is it, Kagami-kun?" You had inquired, but it stayed silent. You didn't need the answer though, you found that the second your eye fell on the envelope, and thus its logo, on the floor.

So you wished him well, and none of the clichés, we'll keep in touch, we'll call, I'm glad to have met you, passed either of your lips. Later, much later, found you wondering how blind you were then.

* * *

It's all a gradual development, one you wish you didn't have to notice, but you did; after a while.

You attend university in Tokyo as planned to study for teacher. It is going very well. Your education is as interesting as you expected it to be. You grades are outstanding and you find it's not difficult at all to follow the lectures. The papers you need to write are well received by your professors, which motivates you to improve even more. You haven't made friends though. No one, and when you say no one, you _mean_ no one, notices you. It is as if your presence grew even dimmer than before. You're not even sure if you're doing it on purpose or not. Maybe. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that you're not playing basketball anymore. You don't know. You find that you don't care.

You are still aware of every single basketball court in your neighbourhood, though. This time it's even more important than before, when you had to be able to find the nearest one to distract idiots from idiotic questions and _idiotic_ topics. Now you're using it to find your way around them. It would do anything but distract you from your thoughts, unfortunately.

You found an apartment; it's a fifteen-minute walk from university, and at first you honestly appreciate the change from your parents' house to this. It has a basketball court almost literally on the building's doorstep, so Kagami and you spent most of your summer holidays there, playing basketball. When he stays over, he cooks and you clean.

At first, you enjoy the fact that you can drink as many vanilla shakes as you want, so your fridge is full of them. There is, after all, no one around to scold you for it; not your mother, not Kagami. You lose interest in the shakes when you realise it was not just the taste that made you drink them.

After a few weeks you realise that you are a horrible cook. It should not be something new, but it is. It definitely is. You can't find the kitchen utensils you need to cook even though it's _your_ kitchen. You know you have them. You've seen them be used tons of times. You eat more boiled eggs than ever.

You grind your teeth when you find out how much work you've done in the hour you've been studying. For one, it's silent and nothing disrupts you from your reading. You are not distracted by chewing sounds, nor the gurgling of a sport drink in its colourful bottle. Nor do you hear the clicking of pens, the drumming of fingers on the surface of the table, or the almost constant stream of murmurs and mutterings from opposite you. Useful, productive, disturbing, _terrifying_ silence. You contemplate turning the TV on to finally humour the request that resounds all too clearly in your head for a sport match, any sport match. But you don't. You do, however, look up for a second, because you would swear on Nigou's jersey that you saw a flash of red before you. You didn't. Of course you didn't.

* * *

You regret nothing. Nothing. _Nothing, _damn it. Or damn him, whatever suits you at that moment.

You've missed America, you realise the moment you set foot on the-oh-so familiar soil. You enjoy it immensely the first few weeks. You are absolutely convinced you're made for sun, and it doesn't take long until you get a nice tan from all the basketball you are playing outdoors. It's amazing how quickly you make friends here, too. Everyone wants you in their team, and when it gets too dark to play, you are invited to bonfires on the beach, and drinks in the bar. You do not think back to Japan, not even for one second because you're enjoying yourself so much.

It's only after the start of the semester, five weeks after you made the move across the Pacific, that you realise you haven't spoken Japanese at all. Worse, you haven't even thought about the country, or the people in it. You can't remember the last time you went without speaking with Kuroko for longer than a day, so you immediately remind yourself to send him an email as soon as you get home. But your first basketball practice is scheduled that afternoon, and you are so excited that you forget.

Basketball is brilliant. It has always been that, but even more so here. The training sessions are gruesome and more often than not you collapse on the couch the moment you get back to your parents' home in the evening, but you feel yourself getting stronger. School is a different story though. You struggle with the courses, and the textbooks, and the teachers and even the students themselves. You think back to all those afternoons at the kitchen table in your apartment in Japan, sitting across Kuroko who is so very silent, but nevertheless always so _very_ there, despite his lack of presence. It's too noisy when you're studying with your new friends, and they are not at all that willing to tutor you in the things you should have understood the first time you read them.

Here you don't have to ask for basketball on the television, because the stupid box is simply always on. You don't cook and no one asks you (or orders you, for that matter) either. You also don't bother looking in your friends' fridges to see if they are eating healthily enough, because you find that you don't care.

It strikes you suddenly, like lightning, when you catch yourself on naming any and all positive points you find. The basketball, the weather, the basketball, the food, the basketball, the language, the basketb_…. Kuso_. You started swearing in Japanese again, because even after all these weeks, you can't seem to forget it after all. But even that doesn't make it any less glaringly obvious that not even basketball is enough. You don't understand why, at first. You're being challenged, and didn't you say before that life's no fun without strong opponents? It's by far less entertaining than you thought it would be. Players are taller than you, and stronger than you and definitely quicker than you. You have lots of friends, you're temperament is definitely more appreciated here. All the factors are there; you _know_ you belong here.

You've wished multiple times you'd be able to feel it, too.

* * *

Momoi-san is in college with you, and you agree to go out on a date with her. It's a logical step to take, all the books you've read agree on that. You date a girl in university. After following the guidelines you composed completely, you wonder when you sink down on the couch that evening where it went wrong. You do not experience the fluttering butterflies, nor do you find holding her hand (small, even smaller than yours) particularly appealing. You hand envelopes hers, and there is a small voice in the back of your head that whispers it should be the other way round. You don't go on other dates after that.

It takes two months for other people to catch on to what is happening with you, but it's still weeks earlier than your own light bulb moment. Maybe it's because you're a shadow that it takes you the better part of a semester to figure it out. You ignore everything that would lead to such a conclusion. You maintain stubbornly that everything is all right, even though you know it shouldn't be.

When you do receive the warning signs, you think it might have had something to do with the Christmas wishes plastered on shop windows, which annoyingly are all in English. You catch yourself several times cursing Japan's growing obsession with the English language. Despite everything, you find yourself more and more often cursing in that _damn_ language too. The words are etched in your mind after all.

You realise the issue, which your subconscious has been trying to inform you of for months, when you come home after a day at university to find a Christmas card on your doormat.

Your heart stops when you take in the many stamps on the front, combined with a messily scribbled down address in kanji (you even find a mistake or two). Your hands are definitely _not_ shaking when you pick it up and slowly open it. You stare too long at the reindeer on the front. Which really is not interesting enough to warrant such attention, but it does. It might have been the red (red!) scarf around his neck. You open it, and stare at the words.

_Merry Christmas, Kuroko_

They annoy you a lot less than when you saw them written on the shop windows. When you move your gaze down and read the name at the bottom, you have the breakdown everyone except you has seen coming.

Taiga. Taiga. _Taiga._

Everything clicks together; or maybe falls apart. You're not sure. You sink down on the floor and lean against the wall. You're not convinced you'd be able to keep upright without the support. You are all of a sudden also not sure if you're ever going to be happy again. Your breath stocks in your throat, and your chest hurts so badly that you have to close your eyes for a second. Or a minute, you don't know. You need help, you are going to faint otherwise so you struggle to grab your phone and press K. Your last thought is focused completely on Kagami.

* * *

No one notices anything strange about your behaviour, mainly because they don't know you well enough. _You_ notice though, after you had that epiphany on the basketball court a couple of weeks ago. It took you two months, but now it doesn't leave your mind again.

You date lots of girls in university, anything to get rid of this aching feeling in your stomach that tells you all is not well, even though it should be. It doesn't help. You do enjoy holding their hand though. You decide to keep a girlfriend just for that.

Basketball is the only thing that distracts you from Japan, (you try to stop yourself from calling it _home_) so you memorise every basketball pitch in your neighbourhood and plan your walk accordingly. Nothing takes your mind of things more than seeing people play.

America has the annoying habit to start with Christmas right after Thanksgiving, which you think is way too early. You don't see the point of it anyway. Maybe you are more Japanese than you thought. Your girlfriend loves it though, and she drags you to several stores to buy presents and cards for all her friends. You still think it's too far away from the actual holiday to bother with it, but when you stand in front of a card stall, your eye falls on a card with a reindeer and an elf on it. You only notice one of them at first, and your heartbeat quickens when your stare right into the elf's blue eyes. It takes a while before you take in anything else, but when you do you have a huge smile on your face. The elf is short and tiny and you laugh out loud when you see that he's flexing his arm muscles, as if showing he is very capable of controlling the reindeer when he wants to. You buy the card, forget about your girlfriend and dive into the first fast-food restaurant you can find. You use the free Wi-Fi to Google Kuroko's address as best as you can and you spend more time than normal on writing down the kanji. When you are satisfied with your work, you buy more stamps than needed to make sure it definitely arrives.

After you push the envelop through the mail box, you feel happier than you felt in months. You smile and close your eyes, enjoying the sun, enjoying the butterflies you get in your stomach now you finally allow all your thoughts to centre on Kuroko.

* * *

It's a couple of days before Christmas and you're almost finished with afternoon practice when you hear a ringtone you haven't heard in five months. You drop the basketball in your hand without any regard for the consequences and sprint to your bag. Snatching it up, you answer with a snapped "yes" before you realise that you have to shift back to Japanese. Your heart hammers in your chest, but it's not the voice you crave to hear.

"Kagamiichi?"

"Kise!? Why are you calling me? And with Kuroko's phone?" You fall silent when Kise's hurried voice explains the situation. Halfway, you let yourself fall down on the bench. You don't notice your angry coach coming in, and you don't notice that you press the phone against your ear so hard it hurts.

After Kise stops talking, there is only one thing you say.

"I'm coming home."

* * *

Christmas songs sound through the speakers at the airport and you stroke your blond hair out of your face. You're thankful your agent had the time to drive you and Kurokocchi to the airport. On Christmas Eve, no less.

You lean back, and watch the scene in front of you with a smile on your face. The tall, red-haired boy is impossible to miss the moment he steps through the doors into the arrival hall. It's only a few steps, a couple of metres, before the passengers are allowed to mingle with their loved ones, but you know you don't have to wait that long for the reunion you're here for. Kurokocchi is the master of misdirection after all.

* * *

When you finally find what you've been looking for, you slip past the guard who really has no chance once you're determined to get to that other side. Your eyes never leaving the subject of desire, you break out in a run. You've missed him so much that the moment you reach him, you throw yourself in those strong arms, against his broad chest and break down. You sob, and your body heaves from the effort it takes you to breathe. You beat your fists against him, but you don't know why. Once, twice, thrice, because goddammit, you shouldn't be doing this. You clench your fists to try and regain some resemblance of control, but the hoarse voice, which tells you he is just as affected as you are, whispers soothing words against your hair. You can feel the vibrations running from the tip of your head all the way down to the bottom of your spine.

You calm down after a while, just enough to feel your heart hammering against his chest. Or maybe it's his heart against yours, you're not sure. You look up, and he looks down at the same time. He smiles at you, and you give one of yours in return. You stay like this longer than is common, but neither of you feels like letting go. You're together again. He is back again. You can _breathe_ again, and just before you press your lips to his, you whisper:

_Merry Christmas, Taiga-kun_


End file.
